We utilize the bibliometric tool of co-word analysis to identify trends in the methods and subjects of ecology during the period 1970-2005. Few previous co-word analyses have attempted to analyze fields as large as ecology. We utilize a method of isolating concepts and methods in large datasets that undergo the most significant upward and downward trends. Our analysis identifies policy-relevant trends in the field of ecology, a discipline that helps to identify and frame many contemporary policy problems. The results provide a new foundation for exploring the relations among public policies, technological change, and the evolution of science priorities.

Information we collect about our planet depends, in part, on the questions scientists ask regarding the natural world. Asking other questions might lead to different innovations and alternative understandings of policy problems and their potential solutions. With a seemingly infinite number of potential study subjects but limited resources with which to study them, why have we chosen to focus on the topics that we have? Here, I present a Q‐method study that explores ecologists' thought processes as they evaluate the merits of potential research topics. The participants, ecologists attending the Ecological Society of America's 2008 Annual Meeting, nominally agreed with one another that their discipline should contribute to solving environmental problems, but they interpreted that goal differently. This study uncovers four competing visions that ecologists have for their discipline. On the basis of these findings, I contend that ecology might be more effective in informing policy if priority setting were a more deliberative process and open to insights from individuals and institutions outside of ecology.

Governmental spending on science is usually justified by claims that the resulting research will yield benefits for the sponsoring nation. I present policy-analytic and ethnographic researchbased on 30 hour-long interviews-of the Mexican ecological research community to explore the structural influence of publication incentives on research content and its relevance to national needs. During a financial crisis in the 1980s, Mexico created a national publication incentive system, the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, to identify and reward scientists producing the most and the most-cited research as defined by dominant international scientific norms at the time. The system has increased productivity but in the process has undermined that country's ability to benefit from its ecological research by surrendering priority setting to the editorial preferences of journals that are linguistically and financially unavailable to potential domestic users. The Mexican experience has implications for institutions worldwide that utilize quantitative productivity measures in researcher evaluation.

Assisted colonization is a contentious climate change adaptation strategy, but we have limited understanding of the bases of disagreement amongst scientists and far less has been done to understand the views of other stakeholders. To establish an initial empirical understanding of the terms of the debate, we conducted a Q method study of the views of scientists and resource managers, a key constituency because of their role in decisionmaking and implementation. We asked 24 forest managers in Ontario, Canada and 26 top-publishing ecologists and conservation biologists to evaluate their level of agreement with 33 statements about assisted colonization from the published literature and other relevant sources. The analysis revealed four main, contrasting perspectives, which we label Ecological Interventionist, Nativist Technocrat, Interventionist Technocrat, and Reluctant Interventionist; all but the Nativist Technocrats were open to assisted colonization. Disagreements between the four perspectives were defined by value-based and policy-strategic considerations at least as much as they were by varied understandings of technical issues. Assisted colonization as a climate adaptation strategy exists within the context of multiple competing and incompatible problem definitions even amongst these technical stakeholders. Based upon our findings and the relevant literature, we conclude that disputes surrounding assisted colonization will likely not be settled by additional scientific research. Rather, underlying non-technical considerations need to be brought to the fore and addressed.

The need to develop successful collaborative strategies is an enduring problem in sustainable resource management. Our goal is to evaluate the relationship between information networks and conflict in the context of collaborative groundwater management in the rapidly growing central highland region of Arizona. In this region, water-management conflicts have emerged because of stakeholders' differing geographic perspectives and competing scientific claims. Using social network analyses, we explored the extent to which the Verde River Basin Partnership (VRBP), which was charged with developing and sharing scientific information, has contributed to collaboration in the region. To accomplish this, we examined the role that this stakeholder partnership plays in reinforcing or overcoming the geographic, ideological, expert, and power conflicts among its members. Focusing on information sharing, we tested the extent to which several theoretically important elements of successful collaboration were evidenced by data from the VRBP. The structure of information sharing provides insight into ways in which barriers between diverse perspectives might be retained and elucidates weaknesses in the partnership. To characterize information sharing, we examined interaction ties among individuals with different geographic concerns, hierarchical scales of interest, belief systems (about science, the environment, and the role of the partnership), and selfidentified expertise types. Results showed that the partnership's information-sharing network spans most of these boundaries. Based on current theories of collaboration, we would expect the partnership network to be conducive to collaboration. We found that information exchanges are limited by differences in connection patterns across actor expertise and environmental-belief systems. Actors who view scientists as advocates are significantly more likely to occupy boundary-spanning positions, that appear to impede the success of the partnership. This analysis challenges widely held assumptions about the properties that separate successful collaborations from those that are less successful. It has implications for our understanding of the factors that constrain information processing, knowledge production, and collectiveaction capability in institutions.

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